Paris — France’s former president Nicolas Sarkozy grew to become the primary earlier head of a European Union state to be jailed on Tuesday, proclaiming his innocence as he entered a Paris jail. France’s right-wing chief from 2007 to 2012, Sarkozy was found guilty last month of in search of to accumulate funding from Muammmar Qaddafi’s Libya for the marketing campaign that noticed him elected.
Agence France-Presse journalists noticed the 70-year-old — who has appealed the decision — depart his residence, and after a brief drive flanked by police on motorbikes, enter the La Sante jail within the French capital.
The reporters heard convicts shouting “Welcome Sarkozy!” and “Sarkozy’s right here” from their cells.
In a defiant message posted on social media as he was being transferred, Sarkozy once more denied any wrongdoing.
“It isn’t a former president of the republic being jailed this morning, however an harmless man,” he mentioned within the publish. “I’ve little doubt. The reality will prevail.”
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Sarkozy was handed a five-year jail term in September for felony conspiracy over a plan for late Libyan dictator Qaddafi to fund his electoral marketing campaign. Qaddafi was killed in 2011 — the primary chief killed amid the “Arab Spring” uprisings that rocked the Center East as a lot of nations with long-time dictatorial regimes confronted standard revolts.
After his Sept. 25 verdict, Sarkozy had mentioned he would “sleep in jail — however with my head held excessive.”
Dozens of supporters and relations had stood exterior the previous president’s residence from early Tuesday, some holding up framed portraits of him.
“Nicolas, Nicolas! Free Nicolas,” they shouted as he left his residence, holding palms along with his spouse, singer Carla Bruni.
Earlier that they had sung the French nationwide anthem as neighbors regarded on from their balconies.
“That is really a tragic day for France and for democracy,” mentioned Flora Amanou, 41.
Sarkozy’s lawyer says launch request already filed
Sarkozy’s lawyer Christophe Ingrain mentioned a request had been instantly filed for Sarkozy’s launch.
The Paris appeals court docket in principle has two months to resolve whether or not to free him pending an appeals trial, however the delay is often shorter.
“He will probably be inside for at the very least three weeks to a month,” Ingrain mentioned.
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Sarkozy is the primary French chief to be incarcerated since Philippe Petain, the Nazi collaborationist head of state who was jailed after World Struggle II.
Sarkozy advised Le Figaro newspaper he will probably be taking with him a biography of Jesus and a replica of “The Rely of Monte Cristo,” a novel wherein an harmless man is sentenced to jail however escapes to take revenge.
Sarkozy going through possible solitary confinement
Sarkozy is more likely to be held in a 95 sq. foot cell within the jail’s solitary confinement wing to keep away from contact with different prisoners, jail employees advised AFP.
In solitary confinement, prisoners are allowed out of their cells for one stroll a day, alone, in a small yard. Sarkozy will even be allowed visits thrice every week.
The previous French presidents a number of authorized woes
Sarkozy has confronted a flurry of authorized woes since dropping his reelection bid in 2012.
He has additionally been convicted in two different instances.
In a single, he served a sentence for graft — over in search of to safe favors from a decide — below home arrest whereas carrying an digital ankle tag, which was eliminated after a number of months in Might.
In one other, France’s prime court docket is to rule subsequent month in a case wherein he’s accused of unlawful marketing campaign financing in 2012.
Within the so-called “Libyan case,” prosecutors mentioned his aides, appearing in Sarkozy’s identify, struck a take care of Qaddafi in 2005 to illegally fund his victorious presidential election bid two years later.
Investigators imagine that in return, Qaddafi was promised assist to revive his worldwide picture after Tripoli was blamed for the 1988 bombing of a passenger jet over Lockerbie, Scotland, and one other over Niger in 1989, killing a whole lot of passengers.
Thomas SAMSON/Gamma-Rapho/Getty 
The court docket convicted him of felony conspiracy over the plan, but it surely didn’t conclude that Sarkozy obtained or used the funds for his marketing campaign.
It acquitted him on expenses of embezzling Libyan public funds, passive corruption and illicit financing of an electoral marketing campaign.
Sarkozy had already been stripped of France’s highest distinction, his Legion of Honor, following the sooner graft conviction.
Six out of 10 folks in France imagine the jail sentence to be “truthful,” in keeping with a survey of greater than 1,000 adults performed by pollster Elabe. However Sarkozy nonetheless enjoys help on the French proper and has once in a while had non-public conferences with President Emmanuel Macron.
Macron welcomed Sarkozy to the Elysee Palace on Friday, telling the press this week: “It was regular, on a human degree, for me to obtain one in all my predecessors on this context.”
